Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean

by Fassbender, Tere Duperrault; Logan PhD, Richard D.

  There was also a small sleeping cabin underneath the left side of the cockpit that was about nine feet long and six feet wide. It was mostly taken up by a four-foot-wide sleeping berth and had storage lockers on the outer wall, at the rear of the cabin, and under the berth. The sleeping cabin extended from the rear end of the main cabin back toward the stern. Just on the other side of the interior wall of this sleeping compartment was the engine room. Most of the rest of the space under the cockpit was taken up by the engine room compartment.

  In front of the main cabin, accessed through a door next to the bathroom, was the main bedroom, which was about eight feet long. It was mostly taken up by a queen-size bed, a couple of chairs, a dressing table and lockers, under the bed and on the walls, for storage.

  Separated by the wall at the front of the main bedroom was a forward cabin accessible only through a large covered passageway on the forward deck that was the same height as the main cabin. The bottom of the mainmast was housed in the wall between the main bedroom and the forward cabin. This forward cabin was about ten feet long, plus there were two berths that formed a V-shape as they extended forward along the hull to the point of the bow. This was the crew cabin for the skipper and his wife.

  The Bluebelle was designed to carry five or six passengers comfortably in the main bedroom, main cabin (on the convertible double berth), and aft sleeping compartment – perfect for the five-member Duperrault family.

  The Bluebelle, coincidentally enough, had been built in 1928 in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, only an hour north of Green Bay in Door County (the Wisconsin peninsula that extends into Lake Michigan). Originally named the Lady Jane, it had sailed the same waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan with which the Duperrault family was familiar, before it was sold several times and ended up in Fort Lauderdale.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Adventurer

  Not a lot was known about Julian Harvey’s earlier life when he was hired in 1961 as skipper of the charter sailing yacht Bluebelle. Everyone knew that the handsome forty-four year old was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and a veteran bomber and fighter pilot. But it wasn’t at all unusual that little was known about someone new to Fort Lauderdale. Like a lot of other Floridians, Harvey had moved there only after retiring. What everyone had heard was that during his nineteen-year military career, he had received both the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal for actions as a B-24 bomber pilot in World War II, and he had flown the charismatic F-86 Sabre Jet in the Korean War. It was also known that Harvey loved to sail.

  After retiring from the Air Force in 1958, the former fighter pilot (at the time either divorced or merely separated, but certainly holding himself out as unattached) cut quite a figure. When he came first to Miami and then to Fort Lauderdale to pursue his longtime dream of becoming the full-time master of a sailing yacht, he became a regular at local marinas and yacht clubs, rarely bothering to talk with men, but always seen at the bar with a beautiful woman.

  He briefly owned his own seventy-foot schooner, the White Swan, which he sailed out of Miami a number of times on charters through the Bahamas. And he had owned at least one other large sailing yacht some years earlier when stationed at Eglin Air Force Base on the Gulf Coast of Florida. He sold the White Swan after about a year, possibly for financial reasons, but he loved sailing so much that he even worked briefly as a deckhand on the majestic four-masted windjammer Polynesia. Determined to be at least a sailing-yacht master, he signed on to be charter skipper of the Bluebelle, owned by Harold Pegg, in the summer of 1961.

  Not only was Harvey the most dashing of figures, even at age forty-four, the former jet jockey still more than looked the part. Straight from central casting, he looked the ideal of the heroic fighter pilot: movie-star handsome with a shock of blond hair and a broad, boyish smile. He was so handsome, in fact, that it was rumored that years earlier he had worked as a male model. In addition, he was sophisticated, well-mannered, and extremely charming.

  Before going to college, Julian Harvey worked as a male model for the Powers agency.

  To top it off he was a fitness buff decades before fitness became the rage. He worked out often to keep the hard, lean body that gave women still more reason to be attracted to him. When he worked on his boat in the Bahia Mar marina, or when he posed for photographs, he usually managed to do so with his shirt off. The only flaw in Harvey’s gorgeous persona was an occasional stammer – which only seemed to make this Adonis more human and accessible – and a mild case of lazy eye.

  To the chagrin of many ladies in Fort Lauderdale, the attractive playboy married a beautiful former TWA flight attendant and aspiring writer on July 26, 1961. Mary Dene Jordan – Dene to her friends – was coincidentally from Wisconsin, like the Bluebelle and the Duperrault family, another denizen of the Dairy State to coalesce on the Bluebelle’s final voyage. It was rumored that Dene was just the most recent in a long string of Harvey’s wives, but no one knew for sure.

  Mary Dene Jordan was a TWA flight attendant before she married Julian Harvey in the summer of 1961.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Brief Time in Paradise

  By Wednesday morning, November 8, 1961, the Bluebelle had been provisioned for a week’s trip. The Duperraults eagerly went aboard to begin their highly anticipated voyage. The children were romping on the deck, excited about the adventures ahead, when Harold Pegg, the Bluebelle’s owner and Harvey’s employer, came aboard to take on a supply of ice. He later recalled that Brian was carrying a .22-caliber rifle.

  “What are you going to do with the gun?” Pegg asked.

  “Shoot some sharks,” the boy said, laughing. In 1961 the idea of shooting at sharks and considering it sport was far more acceptable than it would be today.

  Once the Duperraults and all of their gear were on board, Pegg went ashore and Brian hurried to help Captain Harvey cast off the lines. The Bluebelle’s 115-horsepower Chrysler engine rumbled softly as Harvey slowly turned the wheel and the boat gradually pulled away from the dock, wisps of exhaust sputtering from the stern. The engine changed to a deep-throated, muffled roar as the captain powered the boat east toward the mouth of the harbor. From the shore Pegg watched as Harvey reached open water, slowed and turned the Bluebelle into the southeasterly wind, idling the engine and running up the sails. As her sails filled, the Bluebelle almost appeared eager to fly as she leaned with the wind and began to gather speed as she headed east into the southeasterly wind as close as she could manage, a practice sailors call tacking.

  Glistening under a new coat of paint, the sleek yacht drew admiring glances as she sailed gracefully from the dark waters of the harbor into the green of the open sea, and finally the deep blue of the Gulf Stream, the mighty river in the sea that passes between Florida and the Bahamas as it pounds northward along the entire East Coast. The Florida coast faded behind them and then they were alone with the breezes and the gulls on an empty ocean. Over the horizon ahead, the seven hundred islands of the Bahamas archipelago basked in 72,000 square miles of sun-washed seas, holding the promise of fulfillment of Arthur Duperrault’s dream and of adventure for his family.

  Before the Bluebelle slipped out of sight of shore, a gray squall appeared on the horizon creating a patch of gusty, swirling darkness on the water that raced towards the vessel. Winds running before the storm made the Bluebelle’s shrouds (cables supporting the masts) sing and churned up the Gulf Stream. The squall passed quickly, but the wind continued to blow at a steady eighteen knots – about twenty miles per hour – and the sea was covered with breaking whitecaps. The Bluebelle rose and then plunged and shivered slightly from the tension of wind versus wave as her bow sliced through eight-foot swells.

  As she sailed nearly into the wind with her rigging taut, the wind lifted the white spume off the tops of the waves and threw it into the faces of the ketch’s passengers. The tropical wind was refreshing and the salt spray breaking over the bow was cold and exhilarating. In the excitement of it all, nobody cared abou
t getting wet or getting the first taste of salt on their lips. Their great adventure had begun.

  Terry Jo and Brian, after admonitions from their mother to be careful, straddled the bowsprit – a plank extending forward from the bow – alternately bending far forward to watch the bow slice through the waves and then leaning defiantly into the wind and spray, grinning as they scanned the expanse of sea ahead of them.

  Allowing for the northward drift of the Gulf Stream, Captain Harvey set his course as close to southeast as he could, sailing into southeasterly winds towards Bimini, the nearest of the Bahama Islands, some fifty miles away. Bimini was, in 1961, one of the world’s most famous big game fishing centers, and here the Duperraults planned their first island visit.

  But the rough crossing of the Gulf Stream took longer than expected, and by the time Bimini’s palm-clustered waterfront came into view, it was five o’clock. The customs office had closed for the day and Harvey was unable to present his papers for entry into the British-governed Bahamas, so the party was forced to remain aboard the Bluebelle overnight. Once they were cleared at their first point of entry, they would have free access to all of the islands.

  When dawn broke Thursday in a blaze of pinks, golds, and blues, the Duperraults were already on deck to see their first show of life in a tropical paradise. On the island, pelicans flapped their great wings sleepily and rose on the wind to soar out in flawless formation to find breakfast. They glided gracefully, surprisingly close to the crests of the waves, until they sighted small fish under the sun-sparkled surface. Then the great birds zoomed upward, turned, tucked in their wings, and dived, slicing cleanly into the water with surprising force. In a moment they returned to the surface, gulping down their prey while they shook their heads to fight off pesky gulls. Then with beating wings throwing off sprays of salt water, they returned to the air to hunt again.

  Out to seaward, beneath a flock of sea gulls, a school of big, powerful tuna so numerous they formed a great gray cloud in the green water, fed on baitfish. The gulls dived and scuttled over the surface, fighting over the scraps. Along the Bimini beach, other gulls stood like sentries in formation at the water’s edge, waiting for whatever delicacies might wash ashore with the next wave. As the water receded, the gulls hopped to pick up tiny shellfish swept ashore by the waves. As the next wave broke, it erased their sharp three-pointed footprints from the wet sand. After each scramble for morsels in the surf, the birds turned into the southeast wind and allowed it to dry their outstretched wings and smooth their feathers.

  For unknown reasons, although the ketch was seen just offshore, Harvey did not go ashore at Bimini Thursday morning to present his papers. Instead, he hoisted anchor and was seen moving out toward the northeast. The wind was still strong and he drove the Bluebelle under engine power for several hours toward Great Isaac Cay, a tiny islet rising forty feet out of the sea, with a red and white banded lighthouse to warn travelers of the area’s dangerous shoals. In the protective lee close to the west side of Great Isaac, they spent their second night at sea. The next morning they sailed the deep Northwest Providence Channel due east toward the village of Sandy Point on the southwestern tip of Great Abaco Island, a large island that runs north to south on the eastern edge of the channel.

  In the choppy waters of the channel, the sea offered never-ending entertainment to the family from Wisconsin. Flying fish leapt from the surface and soared like birds for incredible distances. A giant sea turtle swam on the surface close to the Bluebelle. The fin of a sleek shark cut the water, and the Duperraults marveled at the thought that beneath was an unknown world full of both beauty and danger. Porpoises breached near the boat, bounding and twisting through the waves like so many playful school children.

  After crossing the channel, the Bluebelle entered the gentle and impossibly clear emerald shallows of the Great Bahama Bank and a world far removed from northeastern Wisconsin. Here, in 1961, a sailor could roam for weeks on end, dropping anchor each night in a perfect harbor, seldom seeing a human face.

  The sea was wild with color from horizon to horizon, like a stained-glass window. The colors of the water changed constantly. Over deep channels, the water was deep greenish-blue like the open ocean. It was light blue at ten to fifteen fathoms, light green at four to five fathoms, pale green at one to two fathoms, clear and colorless as tap water at less than a fathom, and foamy white where it broke over the coral reefs. Where the bottom was rocky, the light blues changed to dark green, and where the light green waters flowed over a grassy bottom, it took on a brownish tinge.

  Eleven-year-old Terry Jo, the most outdoorsy and keenest observer of nature in the family, took in all of these things.

  Most of the tiny islands dotting the sea were uninhabited, with some of them offering gently curving beaches as beautiful as any in the world. Some were dazzling white and some were pale pink, covered with sand that was actually finely ground coral. The entire Bahamas, in fact, are a nearly two-mile-high mound of carbonate built up out of what once was living coral laid down over millions of years.

  When a harbor was too shallow for a ship with the Bluebelle’s six-foot draft, Captain Harvey anchored in the lee of the island and the party went exploring in the ship’s dinghy. They rowed or sailed the little craft ashore to comb deserted beaches, possibly the same beaches once visited by pirates when they raided Spanish merchant ships laden with treasure from the New World. Even today, beachcombers sometimes turn up doubloons or pieces of eight.

  Over the next couple of days, using facemasks and snorkels, the Duperraults paddled through the shallows of two or three islands, admiring the underwater rainbow of multi-colored tropical fish and undersea gardens. Used to the fresh water of the Great Lakes, they enjoyed being remarkably buoyant in the crystal salt water. Terry Jo paused in one of her swims to stand in the shallow water and look toward the Bluebelle where she lay anchored farther out in the water. Self-conscious in her new bathing suit and her changing body, Terry Jo saw that Captain Harvey was staring at her from the deck. It made her uncomfortable for just a moment, but she soon forgot and went back to swimming.

  All the Duperraults except René were powerful swimmers who easily learned the arts of snorkeling and spearfishing. Sometimes, they went in the dinghy to explore the reefs, while Mrs. Harvey and René would play on a beach, collecting shells and digging in the sand.

  A large fleet of two-masted schooners and single-masted sloops crowded the harbor at Sandy Point, and sailing craft rode at anchor at moorings offshore or were beached for overhaul and repair. The town lived entirely off the sea, and fishing boats and trading sloops constantly came and went. As Harvey anchored the Bluebelle fifty yards offshore, the air was filled with the snapping sounds of the wind whipping slackened canvas, and the squeal and rattle of blocks as sails were lowered.

  Except for exploring some beaches, this was the first time the Bluebelle party had gone ashore. In the colorful settlement of modest huts clustered on sandy ground in the shade of a huge palm grove, the Duperraults explored and chatted with the locals. Dr. Duperrault was so delighted with what he had seen that he told village commissioner Roderick W. Pinder he planned to build a vacation home at Sandy Point.

  “This has been a once-in-a-lifetime vacation and we have thoroughly enjoyed it,” he told the commissioner. “We are going to come back and use Sandy Point as a winter resort.”

  Jean Duperrault, the amateur artist, was enchanted with the village, its small homes painted in bright pastels and surrounded by multi-colored flowers and shrubs.

  Harvey presented his papers at the commissioner’s office for formal entry into the British-owned islands, not having had the opportunity earlier. Technically he was late doing so, and it was a strict requirement, but the easy-going regime of 1961 Bahamian authorities generally allowed such lateness as long as boats simply didn’t come and go at will, and they generally did not make an issue of American boats dropping anchor off their beaches to swim and explore, as long as they did regis
ter in good time.

  Harvey picked up a supply of fresh water while members of the party mailed letters, to be delivered to the Bahamas capital, Nassau, on the regular weekly run of the small sloop that plied the islands, running the mail.

  In one letter, Mrs. Harvey complained to her mother, Mrs. Laura Dene Jordan – who, like the Duperraults, also lived in Wisconsin – that she was never able to be alone on the ship or the beaches. “I think I’ll devise some kind of disappearing act,” she wrote. “Why, oh why, can’t people leave me alone? At this point, I’m ready to shoot myself.” She added that she didn’t like getting up at dawn to cook breakfast for the party.

  But Dene’s mother said her daughter might have been speaking in mock exasperation, for her tone was otherwise cheerful and the letter was signed with an impish smiley pumpkin face. Mrs. Harvey wrote that the Duperraults were “lovely people” and that the children were well behaved. It was, however, the first time in her letters home that she made no mention of her husband.

  Coming out of the commissioner’s office, Julian Harvey encountered Napoleon Roberts, a local fisherman and old acquaintance. They had sailed together briefly some years earlier on the windjammer Polynesia shortly after Harvey sold the White Swan. Harvey was deck hand and Roberts was cook and waiter. As they reminisced, Harvey said he missed fresh crawfish. Roberts promised to catch some that night and Harvey invited him to come aboard the Bluebelle that evening. Roberts said later that everyone on board seemed relaxed and content. He noticed that Harvey and his wife were drinking, but the Duperraults were not.